[boulevardboy]

Riding with Ewan and Charlie – sweet!!

[boulevardboy]

Don’t get a 50cc scooter – that is what they tell you at the dealership and I didn’t listen to them and I regretted it almost straight away. OK, so you can sell it to trade up, but it is a lot of hastle to do and you will very likely loose money, especially if you are buying new rather than used. There are a lot of scooters that you can get that have the power and automatic trasmission, so if that is what you want, go ahead and get it and I am sure you will be totally happy, but try a few different things out before you buy. take the MSF course – if you get more than 50cc you will need an endorsement anyway, so you might as well. I know up here when I took my course I had a scooter and I could have taken the course on a scooter, but I did it on a Honda Rebel – I thought why not. That was a great idea ‘cos I found out that shifting was not hard, it made the ride fun and was not at all like driving a stick shift car. I grew up ion England and never drove an automatic until I came over here and so when I bought an automatic car I thought ‘why would anyone ever drive a stick shift?’ I too thought that the same thing would apply to a bike, so I was happy wioth a scooter until I tried a bike, and then that was all I wanted.

Bottom line is try a bike, try a scooter and then make up your mind, but get more than 50cc unless you want to go up hills at 20-25 mph!

[boulevardboy]

I did not know that, not the case in Washington though. I was surprised I have to say that it was so easy to get a test ride – I had even told the guy that I had limited experience with gear changing and he still let me go out!

[boulevardboy]

I would totally take the course first before you get a bike so that you can get a feel for it before you make a firm decision about what bike to buy. Also, if you pass the course and get an endorsment on your license you can then take any bike out for a test drive from a dealer and get a better idea of how a differnt bike feels to your body shape and the style of riding. I didn’t try a sports bike though, as just sitting on it with both feet on the pegs was enough for me to know it was not for me.

Good luck mate

[boulevardboy]

Well, I think that the S40 is a great bike to ride, but I did have over 8k on a 50cc Vespa first, so although I would not have said I was an experienced motorcycle rider when I moved up I was certainly not totally green. The MSF course helped a lot, but I think part of it is that the S40 is an easy bike to ride. It will easily carry me at speed down the freeway (175lbs) and I managed to get to 75 mph today without even realizing I was going that fast, so it has enough power to managed every day legal street riding!!

I have not ridden a sports bike, but from what I have heard you can get into a lot more trouble with a 250cc Ninja than you can with a 650cc Boulevard.

Just my own very limited point of view.

[boulevardboy]

What would America be without Harley Davidson motor bikes?

[boulevardboy]

I can’t believe that this has become a ‘hobby’ of mine – I always thought it would just be a way to get around!!

[boulevardboy]

That makes me think of William H Macy sniffing John Travolta’s cologne in Wild Hogs, which I think is a very funny movie. I watched it after I got my bike and I know that I would always be more of a Wild Hog than a Del Fuego!!

[boulevardboy]

I used to take my son (aged 7) to school on my Vespa and he thought it was so cool. He never wanted me to take him too early as he always wanted to be able to be seen by the other kids when he got there!! I used to have a top box on the Vespa though, which was why I felt more comfortable with it so there was no way he could fall off the back. I didn’t have too far to go, and it was all on surface streets. I don’t think I will be able to take him on the bike though until I get a back rest for the same reasons. That, unfortunately may not happen for a while as I am cut off from spending any more money!! He does keep asking though.

[boulevardboy]

Thanks for the stats – lets hope they get around to cleaning the rest of it up soon!

[boulevardboy]

Thanks guys for all the friendly comments, glad I was only going slow so that I did manage to ride away from it.

What could I have done differnt though and how could I prevent it from happening again? Both good questions that I do not have a really good answer to. As I said, I wasn’t even really into the turn that much before the bike just went from uinder me and it was so fast that there wasn’t even time to realize that I was going down before I was down.

The best thing that I can think of to do is to avoid those areas of rode that are heavily covered in grit as much as possible – I always try to go wide on turns now as I know that the damn stuff is everwhere. I also try to go slow enough to keep the bike basically upright at all times, rather than lean into the turn. That may not be the best way to manouver, but for me it is the easiest and safest for now. I do intend to take the intermediate MSF course though and holpefully that will help for future.

That junction that I fell on was particularly bad though with a lot of grit going all the way across the lane. I don’t go that way often, but if I had to then I would go out with a broom and sweep it all off the road – avoidance seems to be a really good option!

[boulevardboy]

I started on a 50cc Vespa that I rode for about 2.5 years (over 8000 miles, which really shocked the service guys when i took it in. I now have a Boulevard S40, which is 650cc’s. I think that it is a great bike, and I really love cruiser style bikes for the comfort of the riding positio. I tried a sports bike and it just didn’t feel right at all.

[boulevardboy]

The thing with the MSF course is that you can try a bike there for the weekend and that will really give you the idea of what you want to ride as well. I had a 250cc Reble and it was great – I knew from that point that I would eventually end up with a cruiser. They like you to keep the same bike for both days, at least they did when I took it, but there were some people that tried both a sports and a cruiser style bike to see how they felt. After I took the course it was well over a year and a half before I went to get a bike and I had not driven anything with a clutch since that time apart from the 2 days at the course but when I took my Boulevard for a test drive (yes, they just let me go out on the streets on my own!) I was totally fine and it came straight back to me.

The other thing before you test drive a bike you are going to buy is you could get a bike riding friend to let you have a trial run around a parking lot to get your confidence up.

Good luck

[boulevardboy]

OK, so I do not have that much experience at all, but in my opinion I would totaly go for a cruiser type bike if you want to get a few more cc’s than 250. That way you will end up with a bike that will last you longer before you will potentially get bored of it. The thing that I have heard a lot of people say about sports bikes here for beginners is that they can totally get away from you and you can end up in all sorts of trouble especially the bigger they get. Correct me if I am wrong, but a cruiser style bike is much more forgiving.

[boulevardboy]

I would like to get out on a group ride as well, but I just don’t have the time to be that organized right now! As for the loud pipes, my Boulevard is not that loud at all compared to others, and I like it that way. I think that it would get rather pissed if that was all I could hear after a while.

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